


Weapon

by astolat



Series: POI works [6]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:24:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harold, do you think I'm a weapon?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weapon

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】Weapon 武器 by astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/737295) by [lotusfire666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotusfire666/pseuds/lotusfire666)



> With many thanks to lim and Cesperanza!

"It's not that I'm not interested," John said, because it was the truth: he _was_ interested, incredibly interested; his whole body was hungry for it, as if Zoe had lit a fire under him with one casual throwaway line.

"But?" Zoe said, one elegant eyebrow arching. "I did say no strings attached, John."

"I know," John said. "But I'm pretty sure there's at least some part of your head that's thinking it doesn't hurt that I'd be useful to have in your back pocket." Her mouth compressed to a hard line, her eyes glittering. "I'm sorry," he said, because he was, in more ways than one. He didn't want to hurt her.

"So am I," she said, coolly, picking up her coat. She swung away towards the door and paused on the threshold. "You know, John, I won't deny it. But I will say this. Anyone you care about, anyone who is anything to you – if they _don't_ think that, it's not because they love you. It's because they're an idiot. Because you're a weapon. And anyone who doesn't see that is just plain stupid."

She closed the door behind her quietly. John didn't leave after her right away.

#

Finch came into the library at five in the morning the next day and turned on the lights. John turned his head to look at him as the lights came on; Finch turned, saw him and jumped. "What are you doing here?" he said, blinking owlishly at him.

"Felt restless," John said. It was shorthand for everything buzzing in his head: the edge Zoe's offer had left him with, and the cloud of doubt. He hadn't wanted to sleep.

"And here I thought suburbia might have grown on you," Finch said. "I'm afraid I don't have any work for you, Mr. Reese. Unless you'd care to help me build a new server."

"Why wouldn't I?" John said.

Finch eyed him with a small frown, but all he said was, "In that case, you can put on that anti-static band, and unpack this memory for me."

The process turned out to be pretty interesting. John had built computers out of parts in the field a couple of times before, but it was the difference between an EMT doing patchwork and a brain surgeon. Finch's new server was a monster, with a motherboard he modified by hand with a soldering iron, four CPUs and a dozen sticks of memory, and the heat sinks looked like skyscrapers. Harold's hands moved over it with easy assurance, precise. John idly tossed out questions to him as they worked together: what's that thing, what does this do, pointing to the circular towers and gleaming lines of circuitry that had always been mysterious black boxes before.

"Not that I'm not grateful for your help," Finch said, when they'd closed the case and John had racked it for him, "but I'm afraid that it's reached its limits. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what this is about?" He was already booting the new machine.

"Not really," John said, but after half an hour watching Finch type and configure and run diagnostics, he said abruptly, "Harold, do you think I'm a weapon?"

"Hm?" Finch said over his shoulder; his hands never stopped moving.

"Just something Zoe said," John said.

"Yes, I suppose I do," Harold said, and John looked away, trying not to let it sting. "A sword for justice, if that isn't too fanciful." John turned his head and stared at him, but Finch didn't even glance at him, preoccupied: he'd spoken matter-of-factly. "The timing on one of the memory chips is off by eight nanoseconds. We'll have to pull it."

#

John carried it in his chest like a secret after that, something too strong for everyday, something to take out in the dark when he couldn't sleep, when he kept replaying horrors: prying the teeth out of corpses and the smell of lye. When he wanted to crawl into a bottle again, and instead got up and did push-ups or cleaned guns with a city outside that was as quiet as it ever got. The bitter hours of the night, except now in those hours he could take Harold's voice out and listen to it again instead.

A sword, in Harold's hand: in the hand of the best man he knew, a man who with limitless pleasures and satisfactions available, money, fame, power, had traded them all in, had traded in even his own happiness, to protect other people. A man who'd chosen him, bizarrely and improbably, to be part of his work. And Harold thought—Harold thought he was—

It was like holding a live coal in his hands, if John let himself think about it too much: too bright and hot to bear for long. So he didn't; he kept it hidden away, except when the dark came too close.

He had to call Zoe in for another case a few weeks later: Harold suggested it, and calling her was a lesser evil than telling Harold why he didn't want to. John knew Harold wouldn't make him explain: if he said _I'd rather not say_ , Harold would accept that and write Zoe off their list of assets permanently, but Harold might need her someday. And John didn't really want Harold to know about—actually he wasn't sure exactly what part he didn't want Harold to know. Maybe any of it.

Zoe took the call, as John had known she would: she wouldn't let being angry at him matter enough, and she wouldn't let it show; she was smiling and amused the whole time. She _was_ still angry though, and it slid out at the end, when she was saying goodbye and taking the flash drive with her payment, a small program Harold had written to fully secure her email accounts. "Always a pleasure," she said, taking the drive. "How have you been doing, John? Find someone to prove me wrong yet?"

"Harold, actually," John said. He regretted the words even as they left his mouth: it was stupid and petty, a comeback to someone he'd hurt in the first place, who'd made him a hell of a nice offer and gotten a slap in the face; she hadn't known she was hitting back below the belt. This wasn't something he wanted to spend his secret comfort on, and he was instantly sorry he'd said anything.

And then he looked at her and she was blinking at him open-mouthed, as though he'd said something bizarre; then she said, "Oh. _Oh_. Well. I guess that—makes perfect sense, actually," half to herself, and then shook her head. She turned away and went down to her waiting car with a wave of her hand, more jaunty. John stood choked behind her. He'd been about to tell her she'd gotten the wrong idea, but the words had died in his throat.

#

It started to consume him, after that. Harold's hands on his keyboard. The back of Harold's neck, where the thin line of the surgery scar showed above the collar of his shirt. The annoyed press of Harold's mouth—Harold's _mouth_. The gleam of the cufflinks at his wrist, like a Victorian flash of ankle.

John covered as best he could, which was in fact very well, and he was reasonably sure Harold hadn't noticed. Wouldn't have noticed, ever. And then one afternoon standing at the tail end of a case, Fusco slapping handcuffs on an unconscious number, grousing at him, John said cheerfully, "Well, Lionel, I _did_ give him a chance to back out."

"Yeah, sure you did," Fusco said, and looked at Harold as he joined them, the smashed laptop secure under his arm. "Look, will you put this guy out of my misery already? He's bad enough when he's _not_ trying to strut for you."

Harold blinked at him. John was so blindsided he couldn't even manage to think of a way to deflect. Fusco didn't even seem to notice what he'd done; he just rolled his eyes and heaved away the prisoner, leaving John and Harold behind.

Harold looked at him. John bent down to pick up the box of submachine guns and pretended not to notice, the best he could manage with the wheels of his brain spinning uselessly in panic. It wasn't enough to know Harold wasn't going to be angry, wasn't going to hold it against him. John wanted to live in that place of possibility, wanted a chance in hell. He didn't want Harold to say anything.

And then oddly, Harold didn't. After a week where Harold kept not saying anything about it, John started to think that he'd overreacted—that Harold had taken it as Fusco ribbing John, nothing serious. He couldn't completely convince himself, but given his alternatives, he was willing to take it.

And then they got back to the library from the next number, another life saved, John feeling a glad brightness all through him, and Harold said quietly as he reached for his coat, "John."

John stopped, bleakly said, "Yes?"

"I'm sorry it's taken me so long to address the situation," Harold said. "I had to alter a substantial number of arrangements, which I had made on the assumption that it was more likely than not that if one of us were lost, the other would remain active."

John dropped his hand and wheeled around. Harold was saying, "I am not always perceptive, where people are concerned—" but he didn't have the chance to finish; John was kissing him, urgently, gripping the knot of his tie and sliding the end through while Harold made muffled, startled noises against his mouth.

There was a reasonably comfortable couch in the back room: they'd both crashed on it now and again. John maneuvered Harold onto it and pulled half-delirious at his clothing, following buttons with his mouth on Harold's throat, sliding his hands beneath shirt and waistcoat to find bare skin, warm and secret.

Harold took a few minutes to make the transition from explanation to action; then he started stripping John, a lot more efficiently. John leaned into his hands hungrily, wanting them all over him, and Harold made a small hmming noise of satisfaction; he drew John close, kissed him, smoothed his hands all over John's back, his hips, his shoulders, until John was shuddering with it. "Please," John said, and Harold said, "Yes, of course," and then looked at the couch critically. "Like this, I think," he said, and made John stand in front of him.

He jerked John off slowly and methodically, using both hands and occasionally his mouth, a thoughtful exploratory curl of his tongue over the head of John's cock. John had to work hard not to come just from the feeling of it, being known and handled, turned over, taken apart.

Harold stroked his hands up John's thighs slowly, intimately. He drew his mouth off, licking his lips. "May I?"

"By all means," John said, and Harold slid a slick finger into him, deep, and stroked him. John liked that it took some getting used to; he liked being conscious of Harold working on him, setting him up. He nodded to another finger, spread for it and thought about Harold fucking him, imagined Harold's cock sliding into him like Harold's fingers, thicker, blunt, opening him wide. It was a good thought. His cock jerked in Harold's hand.

"Really?" murmured Harold, and licked the head of his cock some more, stroking him deeply. John groaned and said, "Harold," a warning. A tight clenching heat was building in his gut.

"That's entirely all right," Harold said, and sucked the head of John's cock into his mouth, pressing deep, and John braced himself against the bookcase behind the couch and came in three deep gasps, letting go. Harold swallowed and licked him through it, still gently thrusting with his fingers, until it was over and he eased John down to the couch next to him.

John let his head fall back, panting. He felt dizzily good, unreal. He managed to turn his head; Harold was looking at him with a small real smile, eyes bright, and John's chest ached with a sudden, unexpected joy, more than everything else: he'd never seen Harold truly happy before. He'd made Harold happy.

Harold was still half-dressed and badly rumpled, tie hanging loose around his neck, vest and shirt unbuttoned, belt and pants undone, hair mussed and tail ends of fabric tufting out everywhere. John leaned over and kissed him, slid a hand into his boxers and gripped Harold's cock, feeling its length and weight in his palm like a promise. He stroked it, enjoying Harold's inhaled breath and his eyes closing with pleasure.

He slid down off the couch and kneeled next to it; he angled Harold's cock into his mouth and took it deep, feeling it all along his tongue, hot and tender-skinned. Harold's hands slid into his hair, cradled his head gently, held him. John pulled slowly off, letting his tongue drag along the whole length, and turned his face in Harold's grip to cup his palm and kiss it, lick his fingers.

He half wanted to ask Harold to fuck him right now, but there was no rush, and it would be nicer to have a bed. He went down on Harold again instead, sucked him, tasted him, nuzzled into the tangle of dark hair at the groin. Harold was gasping, but his hands were still endlessly gentle on John's head even as his hips tried involuntarily to rise, to thrust into John's mouth. John slid his hands beneath Harold's hips and urged him on, welcomed him, working his tongue over and around Harold's cock until Harold said, sounding half surprised, "Oh," and spilled in his mouth, bitter and intense and perfect.

John held Harold's cock in his mouth afterwards, letting it soften on his tongue, occasionally unable to resist giving it another lick or suck, though Harold made small desperate gasps when he did, too sensitive. He finally let it slip out over his lips, brushing a kiss on the soft crumpled skin. Harold was lying back bonelessly, breathing deeply. John rested his head on Harold's warm thigh, the wool soft under his cheek.

"John," Harold murmured, stroking his thumb gently over John's mouth.

John nuzzled his hand. "Harold," he said softly, "use me."


End file.
